School Feeding Programme Received Funds To Pay Caterers By End Of Feb.

The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) has promised to settle caterers for the first term of the 2018/19 academic year by end of February this year.

The Ministry in a statement signed by the acting Director of Communications, Mrs Doris. Gaba, said the MoGCSP has received some funds from the Ministry of Finance for the payment of the caterers.

According to the ministry, the funds are meant for payment for the 51 cooking days instead of the 71 cooking days to streamline the payment schedule.

The statement noted that the outstanding 20 days will be paid when funds are received from the Ministry of Finance.

Payment, the statement said, will be made to caterers whose data ( hard copy) has been signed and submitted by their Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives as at Feb 12 2019.

The GSFP which has apologised for the delay in payment stressed that the delay was as a result of strict government processes in the releasing of funds by the Ministry of Finance to the MoGCSP.

They added that delay in the collation of data from some regions and districts also accounted for that however, some isolated cases are being investigated before payment is made.

"Schools with enrollment differences of more than 100 between third term of the 2017/2018 academic year and first term of 2018/2019 academic year. Schools without any previous records on the third term payment file for the 2017/2018 academic year," the statement emphasised.